Dear James
by Your Great Escape
Summary: This is one of those tragic cases in which you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. James, are you truly gone? Have you forgotten about me? Am I going to have to go to the ends of the earth to win you back? ONESHOT! LJ!


**Title:** Dear James…

**Author:** Sara Chappelle

**Rating:** K/ PG

**Category:** Romance

**Summary:** Lily sends James a letter in a final attempt to win him back, but by the time he gets it, is she already gone? ONE SHOT!

**Author's note:** This just popped into my head tonight, and I thought I'd try my hand at a one-shot. I hope you all enjoy it.

**Disclaimer:** It belongs to J. K. Rowling.

_Dear James,_

_It's always been hard for me to keep my feelings hidden from you, from my friends, from everyone – even myself. I constantly found myself looking up and seeing only you, on the other side of the room, paying absolutely no notice to me. And then there were the times when you were there, 'bothering' me to no end. To be honest, it didn't bother me. I loved it, no matter what kind of thing I did in order to get revenge. Afterwards, I always felt horrendously guilty, as if I would be unable to keep going with my charade._

_Some days, I'd ask myself if I even needed the charade to begin with. I wanted to get rid of the reputation I had earned myself, to free myself from the bonds of being Hogwarts' official good girl. I was always the one who earned everything. It seemed that I always had the top grade in the class, or that I was the one who got prefect and Head Girl. Sure, I'm proud of that, but in doing all of that, I prohibited myself to excellence. I remember getting angry because I had gotten an E instead of an O on a transfiguration exam. It was the hardest week of my life because I started challenging everything I had every tried to do, everything that I thought mattered to me. As it turned out, it really wasn't that important._

_All through this, my life and grades went downhill. Petunia, my dear sister, told me that she hated me and refused to have me in her wedding. I thought of it as a blessing that I wouldn't have to wear that stupid taffeta dress, but the implications devastated me. She didn't want me as a sister, simply because of what I was – a freak. At the same time, I didn't belong in the wizarding world. At school, every time I walked down the hall, I heard shouts of Mudblood and other derogatory names. I'm not sure when I cracked, but eventually I stopped caring. I became one of those girls who pretended not to care, who was always late to class, who was pleasantly surprised whenever she managed to scrape by on an A._

_Then, last week, you asked what had happened to me. I honestly don't know. I've been spending my days like I don't know what, but I can't get our argument out of our head. It's like a song you've had on repeat, and it just keeps going, never stopping. But I'm not sure I want it to stop. I want to go back to who I was, but I'm not sure I can. I've been changed by this war – we all have. You don't smile as much as you used to, and your pranks don't draw the laughs they used to. You never seem to have time to stop by the library just to bother me half to death. And I miss it. I miss you. This is one of those tragic cases in which you don't know what you have until it's gone. James, are you truly gone? Have you forgotten about me? Am I going to have to go to the ends of the earth to win you back?_

_I would, if that's what it takes. I love you, James, and I think I always will. I can't go on living through these extremes – I'm just not up to it. I need some moderation in my life. I need someone there who'll encourage me no matter what kind of stupid shit I do. I need someone who is tall, attractive, plays Quidditch, is a marvelous prankster, who I can tell what I really think about everything, who's romantic, who'll love me back until the world comes to an end._

_James, I'm begging you – think about this. I'll understand if you don't love me anymore, and I'll move on. But I don't want to have to do that. Losing you would leave a hole in my heart so big it would take the world seven times over just to fill it in. And then it'd still ache from missing you. Please, consider this. Bring me out of this hole I've managed to trap myself inside. I love you more than you or anyone else could ever know._

_Love,_

_Lily._

James had awoken to find the letter pressed into his hand. His hazel eyes stared out from behind round spectacles as he examined the exquisitely perfect letter. Or, it would have been perfect had it not been dotted with tears. The ink was now smeared in so many places it was nearly impossible to decipher. Yet, that wasn't important now. Lily had finally realized what she wanted and needed. And it had taken a horrendous argument to do it. James had already begun to force himself to forget about the redhead when he got this. And she had explained her thought process. That was what the Head Boy loved about Lily Evans: the way she actually thought things over on her own before saying a thing, instead of just agreeing with him. She wasn't the kind of girl who just agreed with whatever the hottest guy in the room said – the kind that seemed to be the most common at Hogwarts.

He let himself lie in bed a little longer, contemplating the contents of the letter. Everything she had said was true. Her grades had been dropping drastically ever since Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange had decided to attack her in the hallway. She had pretended to be fine at first, James noticed, but there was something missing in her. Lily seemed to have lost all her spirit then, and it took quite a bit of effort on his part to make her get angry at him. And then it had all come back. That was the girl he had fallen in love with, the one who was worth asking out every day since third year. And she was willing to go to the ends of the earth to win him back, which had been made obvious by this one letter. Lily had always been leery about putting her feelings about anything or anyone out in the open, and she had finally done just that.

Knowing all of these things, the Head Boy climbed out of bed, and slowly dressed, contemplating what he would say to her. What if she was already gone? He would track her down and find her, and bring her back home and keep her in his heart forever. She had been marked as Mrs. James Potter from the moment he saw her, and he had no intention on changing any of that. Her name was on his lips as he hurried down the stairs towards the Gryffindor Common Room, desperate to find Lily Evans, the gorgeous redhead with those intoxicating green eyes. "Have you seen Lily?"

The question was on his lips for the next three hours, to no avail. She just wasn't here. Yesterday, she had threatened to quit, to leave, to go home, and James was deathly afraid that she had done just that, with only three months left in the school year. And he was more afraid that she might have done something else to herself, something that he couldn't fix. So he desperately continued his search, running through the corridors, glancing into empty classrooms, checking the courtyards and the library. Finally, Potter raced out of the entrance hall, his hurried pace slowing to a leisurely walk. So Lily was gone. He would find her and bring her back. The question was, where would she go to hide from the world? She certainly wouldn't go back to London, where her family was – she had just told him how her sister hated her. She wouldn't want to be reminded of the torment she had gone through there.

Idly, the Head Boy stepped down a set of stairs leading to the open Hogwarts Grounds. It was a cool day, even for March, and there was almost no one to be seen across the cool grounds. It was quiet, peaceful. Potter, knowing full well that he shouldn't have been out alone – no one was allowed out on their own – crossed the grass towards the Quidditch Pitch. He had spent a good portion of his years at Hogwarts here, and he would miss it. He would miss the joy of flying as seven-hundred students below cheered madly, and the woosh of the air in his ears when he plummeted towards the ground in pursuit of the snitch. Or when he went up to Lily after the match to ask her out, only to have her refuse. He could still hear her saying, "Potter, you smell like a wet dog. It's a no, always will be." It seemed like that had been so long ago.

From the center of the Quidditch Pitch, James let his eyes flit over the rest of the grounds. His eyes caught on a small object by the edge of the lake that he hadn't seen before. Well, he had seen it before, he just didn't recognize it. Curious, the Seeker made his way towards the lake, his pace never changing. His hazel eyes flitted over the grass, and the wind played with his uncontrollable ebony hair. It wasn't long before he realized exactly who the object was, if that was only because of the sobs that issued from it as it trembled irrepressibly. "He's gonna find it, and he's gonna think I'm so stupid… I never should have given it to him…" She murmured in between violent sobs. James stood about ten feet behind her, watching her cry like this. It broke his heart to see Lily, his flower, cry like this, but he wanted to know exactly why it was before he said anything to the redhead. If he had done something else, he wasn't certain he would forgive himself. "It's not like anything I wrote was believable, anyways. Besides, he'll probably think that I was trying to win him back…"

"That was the whole point, wasn't it?" James interrupted, once he finally realized that Lily was crying over the letter. She spun around, clearly surprised, but quickly tore her gaze away from those hazel eyes that always pierced straight into her soul. He took several steps towards her, stopping when they were a few feet away from each other. "To win me back, that is…"

"Yeah… Yeah, it was," Lily answered, wiping away her tears. "I don't know what I was thinking…"

"Yes you did, flower," James replied calmly, the corners of his mouth turned upwards enough to give the impression that he was slightly amused. "It was your end of the Earth. I couldn't ask for any more." He took another step towards her, and tilted her chin up when she looked away. "Look at me, Lily."

"I am."

"No, you're not. You haven't really looked at me since I met you on the train. And then you told me that you didn't like my hair," he answered, trying to get his point across. "What I mean is don't look at me like you have been doing for the past seven years. Look at me like you know how much I love you. Like I know how much you love me. Look at me like we're totally alone, like there's nothing in the world other than us."

There were tears in her eyes by the time he finished this speech. "James…" She sighed a shuddering breath, and James reached out, his hands lingering above her hips, never actually making contact with her body. "James, I… I don't know what to say." She took a tiny step towards him, so that their bodies were only inches apart.

"Then don't say anything." His hands finally touched her waist, pulling her close against him. "Just being with you is enough for me." She didn't answer, but only let her head rest against his chest, locked in the strong arms of James H. Potter. They stayed like this, silent, for a long time, until Lily finally gathered the courage to break the silence.

"I love you," the redhead murmured, and James smiled. He leaned down to kiss her, holding her even more tightly against him as their lips met. It was one of those soul-searching kisses that made you feel as if true love might actually exist, and that as long as you were with that other person, nothing could go wrong with the world.

"I love you too."

.s.c.

**A/N: **Woot, one-shot! Review!


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